Wednesday, January 7, 2009

That is the headline of this article in todays "mint" newspaper. Incidentally, they named the paper "mint" because they thought people would read the paper and make so much money from the news contained in it that they would see the banner of the paper and say "Ah! Mint! Place which prints money! And paper which helps us make money like a mint!", thus increasing circulation.

Well, due to reasons beyond that fine newspaper's control, the readers say "Ah! Mint! Inexpensive hardboiled confectionery! Just what my present net worth will allow me to buy!" Which of course is totally beside the point. It is just that my natural altruism compels me to spread enlightenment at every opportunity. The Buddha, they say, had the same problem.

Anyway, let me get back to our main topic of this post, the hazardousness of being president. I am one of those speedreaders who looks at the headlines and any pictures shown in the article and automatically divines what the author wanted to say in 2000 words.

And, since the mugshots of Vajpayee and Manmohan were shown, I assumed the article referred to Indian presidents and the doofus had got it wrong, using photographs of Prime MInisters.

Actually the article is about US presidents (pointed out by elder son, who reads whole articles, to my great dismay) but I had already formed major arguments and opinions. Too late to change them now.

Thus, I give below my analysis and why I strongly believe in the author's theory that Indian Presidents are so stressed out that they suffer from poor health.

SHENOY'S ANALYSIS

According to the Constitution, the President is the Top Executive in the country and has Sweeping Powers, as given below

Article XXXVVVEEEMMM : The President shall be the Titular Head of the State

Article XXXVVVEEEMML : The President shall be the Titular Head of the Government

and, most importantly, the article from which the president derives her supreme power

Article XXXVVVEEEMMS : The President shall be the the sole decider of curtain cloth for use in the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Now, the Rashtrapati Bhavan has some 700 windows. You can well imagine how stressful this must be. The missus and I selected curtains for 6 windows and my triglycerides touched 230. And I don't even want to talk about my systolic blood pressure.

No, the author is right. Even though, for security reasons, he refers to American Presidents, the truth is crystal clear. He talks about OURS.

Hahaha! U know wat...i do the same thing u do...just read the title and see the pics...and when i saw the article, the first thing i noticed was that the pics were of PMs! and i thought that's what ur 'post' was about! Then further into the post i realised :D

After seeing the pics, I went and saw my pics just before marriage and now - I have ALSO aged which the missus claims is because of the 12 intervening years and two kids but we know that is just an CYA syndrome. Ergo, we are also presidents (the Indian ones) - titular heads and we CANNOT even choose the curtains!!Great post Shenoy maam!